A new year’s resolution

The leader of the nearby church called me during Christmas time. He was discouraged and it seemed he was close to giving up. An active and important church member left the church to live with an unbeliever in another province. He felt like everybody was abandoning the sinking ship lately.

The people in Yaang Sisuraat have really made an effort of following Jesus through these last years and I think that is stirring things up in the unseen world around us. I felt I was being led to encourage him in a very specific way. I told him that often when we are close to a breakthrough, the adversary will try to discourage us and will try to let us give up. James 4:7 says that we need to submit ourselves to God, resist the devil and that he will flee from us if we do so.

Just recently I watched the movie ‘War room’. In this movie a lovely old lady who finds out the hard way, that her first and foremost responsibility is to pray for the things God puts on her heart. Starting this new year I felt both convicted and encouraged. This movie pointed me back towards a simple and basic truth: God works through prayer. All our missionary work is without power if we don’t first come to our Lord Jesus in simple prayer!

I need to learn this more and more and hope I can do this together with the leader of the nearby church. We need to submit ourselves to God, first and foremost in prayer. We need to resist the devil, first and foremost in prayer and then the devil will flee! In this new year, the most important thing we can do in our work, is to pray!